Mexico: the Genesis of Its Political Decomposition: (Miguel Alemán Valdés: 1936 to 1952)

By Mario Raúl Mijares Sánchez

At the beginning of the 21st century, only a few can deny that the Mexican State is in full decline, as there exist axioms of political theory that show it, and economic indicators that confirm it. In addition, recent sociological studies agree in explaining the substantial loss of values in the present generation. The breakdown of the presidential institution, which still serves as the supreme organ because of its constitutional powers, is evident.
Mexico: The Genesis of its Political Decomposition (Miguel Alemn Valds: 1936 to 1952) was written with theoretical rigor, and at the same time, directed and supported by the renowned Dr. Luis Javier Garrido. In this text, the reader will find the origin of political decomposition in Mexico, and the various causes which have led to its structural degeneration. In content, you will comprehend the two most important political cycles in the life of this nation: the first, governed by the post-revolutionary military presidents, and the second, the one which started with Miguel Alemn Valds, considered as the civilian governments.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palibrio
• Release date: Mar 22, 2013
• ISBN: 9781463328948

Mario Raúl Mijares Sánchez

Mario Raúl Mijares Sánchez, nació en la Ciudad de México, en 1943, recibió el título de licenciatura, y grados de Maestría y Doctorado por la Facultad de Ciencia Política y Sociales FCPyS de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México UNAM, la mayoría de su obra la escribió en Jalapa, Veracruz. De su ya extenso trabajo están: La edición en español e inglés de The génesis of Its political descomposition (Miguel Alemán Valdés; 1936 to 1952) Formas de Gobierno (Lecciones de teoría política); Gobiernos generadores de riqueza (La administración pública del futuro) Política y Administración Pública; Modelo gerencial en el sector público. En el terreno de la literatura, las novelas: Mezclilla (trenzado en un pantalón) y Al filo del machete.

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Copyright © 2013 by Mario Raúl Mijares Sánchez.

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I

THE MILITARY GOVERNMENTS OF POST-REVOLUTIONARY MEXICO AND THE SCHOOL OF CIVILIAN THOUGHT

(1917-1929)

01. - THE CRITICISM OF MILITARISM IN THE POST-REVOLUTIONARY MEXICO

02. - VERACRUZ IN THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION

CHAPTER II

THE POSTREVOLUTIONARY VERACRUZ

(1913-1935)

01. - THE MILITARY AND THE NATIONALIST IN VERACRUZ

02. - POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE CIVIL MOVEMENT

IN VERACRUZ

CHAPTER III

THE CASE OF MIGUEL ALEMÁN VALDÉS

01. - THE GENERAL MIGUEL ALEMÁN GONZÁLEZ

02. - ADALBERTO TEJEDA OLIVARES

03. - MIGUEL ALEMÁN VALDÉS, STUDENT AND ENTREPRENEUR

04. - VERACRUZ: TRAGEDY AND OPPORTUNITY

CHAPTER IV

THE GOVERNMENT OF MIGUEL

ALEMÁN VALDÉS IN VERACRUZ

(1936-1939)

01. - THE ARRIVAL OF A CIVILIAN TO THE GOVERNMENT

OF VERACRUZ

02. - THE SECOND YEAR OF THE GOVERNMENT (1938)

03. - MIGUEL ALEMÁN VALDÉS AND THE PARRISMO

CHAPTER V

MIGUEL ALEMÁN VALDÉS AND CIVILISMO OF THE 40’S

01. - THE GOVERNMENT OF PRESIDENT ÁVILA CAMACHO.

THE LAST MILITARY PRESIDENT IN MEXICO

02. - MIGUEL ALEMÁN AND CIVILIAN PROGRESS

03. - MIGUEL ALEMÁN VALDÉS, CANDIDACY TO

PRESIDENCY (1945)

CONCLUSIONS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

01. - FILES AND LIBRARIES USED

02. - PRINTED PRIMARY SOURCES

To my beloved wife,

Mrs. Judith Arce de Mijares

For the extraordinary chance of soaring high with you.

Thank you.

INTRODUCTION

I will find myself happy every time, by meditating over the different forms of government, I always find in my research new reasons to love my country!

Jean Jacques Rousseau

T he current research entitled Mexico: The Genesis of its Political Decomposition (Miguel Alemán Valdés 1936 -1952), was used as a tool of general analysis and method, an important part of the exposition of instruments that classical theory provides, along with analytical categories of conquest and conservation of power, utilized by Macchiavelli in his work The Prince ; which were used to examine the different findings. After drawing into the first antecedents bolstered by a theoretical focus, it was possible to resolve the other interpretative pitfalls in order to move forward with the inquiry project.

The government of Miguel Alemán Valdés in Veracruz was chosen during its administrative period of 1936 to 1939, given that this was a laboratory for the development of the idea of a project of the transition of a government of military principles to one of a civil Mexico. In this form, it was essentially taken into consideration the military and civil principles, along with the republican basis of its government, which was cemented in the fundamental Letter of 1917, as stated in the reform of article 27 of the constitution. The new disposition was created so that the landowning oligarchy could receive certificates of exemption and rely on agrarian distribution. The constitutional reforms consummated by the so-called civil governments were one of the biggest contrasts that were found amongst the governments that were administered by the military before. The changes to the Magna Carta by these types of administration have taken the country to the brink of a political transition, which ostensibly was a real desire by these types of wrongfully called civilian governments. Aristotle (384 to 322 BCE) already spoke of the devastating effects of reforms to the constitution of a State. He points out that a constitution is a form of organization of the population, which is part of what composes the denominated State. When the type of government is altered and distinct, it seems that the state is no longer the same state.¹ Thomas Aquinas (115-1274), Italian philosopher and theologian, in his Treatise on Law, reproduces what Aristotle had already developed, and also cites Saint Agustin’s City of God, where he says:

The community of the state is made up of many people, and its welfare is achieved by several actions, and the state does not constitute it to last a short time, but rather that it perseveres through several generations.²

In this way, a political, social and historical interpretation was procured from the time, with a dialectic focus, especially through the abstract and concrete behavior of the Mexican State. As work progressed, the Mexican presidential regiment was also analyzed, avoiding the purely descriptive theoretical level. This implied the visit to areas where internal and external conflicts were developed, avoiding oral history to highest extent, since it is very risky. The pattern consisted of following the links between the real occurrences and the theoretical analysis in the documents. This interdependence was the abstraction in the frame of reference of political theory in order to avoid falling into a type of hagiography.³

Based in this type of information, the research was operated with a political theory based, whose objective is: the science of authority, called to govern the group of human knowledge inside a dialectic relation, between the one that orders at the one that obeys; it is to say, between government and those who are governed. With said theoretical instruments, it was easy to discover, especially show the success and absurd behavior of distinct caudillos, governors, military and civil presidents, inside the governmental periods of study. The incontinence is valued along with the realized success which demonstrated the dissolvent critic of the accepted theory. Distinct contributions were drawn, mainly those that were of a mere dual vision. If they were avoided, the author would have only shown the negative and positive of this parcel of reality. By eluding such scheme, a sterile work was avoided, a type of self-abuse of intellectual exercise. In the same form, another difficulty that needed to be overcome was that until now, there exist few research works in regards to the examined period and thesis theme. There have been valuable opinions and we count with a heterogeneity of works learned in this respect. The majority of studies in this topic, the dominant factors have been historical, juridical, anthropological, economic, administrative and sociological, which in many cases marginalizes political theory.

The political, and to a certain degree military, behavior was significant where the post-revolutionary military governments achieved important political stability, which was achieved without the utilization of the army as a fundamental political force; however, certain local repressions cannot be hidden. It was the military genius which implied a special tendency of spiritual force and, in this form, the military presidents were able to direct supreme power of a newly constituted Mexican State. A significant result was that, perhaps a result of the violent transition of the Mexican Revolution, many of these generals conceived the country as the homeland. At the same time, the leading military governments governed with a perfect combination of diverse social classes, with one being the depositary of the supreme organ and of the Executive Power. It is important to point out that the post-revolutionary army achieved the conquest horse riding. Its principal insignia was the cavalry. From this position, they provided the people with protection through a republican zeal. As for being responsible for the government, the generals, with equal dignity, attended to civil issues without neglecting the military. This goes in contrast to the robbed civilian caste, which propelled the business class, marching to the rhythm of the internal and external oligarchy. This alteration by the wrongfully called civil governments, governed to the advantage of one sole class. The latter took place with Miguel Alemán, where this deviation has been justified not only by presidents and politicians in office, but by some historians and intellectuals who have pointed out that it was a result of the necessity of the grand project of industrialization for the country; searching for prosperity and progress over the base of the great alliance, regardless that the country lacked enough private and public resources to carry out the project for industrial modernization.

It is important to point that such oligarchic deviation started during the years of callismo, continued by Lázaro Cárdenas after making the decision of nationalizing the oil industry and, posteriorly, with Manuel Ávila Camacho who, since his candidacy, was supported by the United States government. Before such commitments, and juxtaposition of the political and economic events that took place in the governments of Ávila Camacho and Miguel Alemán, it becomes apparent that this provoked the oligarchization of the country; the official candidate began to forge alliances with the powerful Monterrey Group. The founders of the Monterrey Group were: Patrick Mullins (Patricio Milmo), Isaac Garza, Francisco Sada, José Muguerza, Luis Garza (of fundidora), Roberto G. Sada (Vidriera), Luis G. Sada (Cervecería Cuauhtémoc), Joel Rocha (Salinas and Rocha), Manuel Barragán (Refrescos Topo Chico, later Coca-Cola), Pablo Salas and López (Cementos Hidalgo), Arturo Padilla (Casa Cálderon) and Emilio Azacarraga (Distribuidora Ford Monterrey). A pressure group of oligarchic essence; therefore, opposed to the governments of military principles, which were called radical.⁴

The characteristics of governments with military officers in the Executive during the post-revolutionary period were carefully analyzed during this research. As already mentioned, such events revealed that neither one assumed militarist behavior with eminent authoritative signs against the people, regardless of having conquered power through the use of arms, and even finding themselves in the midst of post-revolutionary social agitation. Another important element that was revealed, and therefore developed, was that the military Mexican presidents acted in contrast to the preponderance of the military spirit of traditional military governments. It is important to reiterate the aforementioned, especially in the federal and even the municipal level, taking into account the exceptions, which were not common during this period of study in the majority of state and municipal governments where the military was in the state’s Executive. Likewise, the Military Zones continued to play an important role. They were created by Porfirio Díaz and continued being a fundamental part in the dual power with the State governors. The zone commanders, almost always with the title of generals, were very knowledgeable of the structure of political power; therefore, they were on several occasions more important than the governors. While Miguel Alemán was not a military man, he decided to rely on money to preserve the loyalty of the army. The zone commanders: Received sizeable secrete allocations for personal use […] during Alemán’s six years, this money came from presidential secret funds, which, as it is known, were not subjected to auditing.⁵ The references and regional events could possibly reflect the systematic irregularity in regards to space and time, but regardless of these difficulties, the central argument did not go astray.

This way, inside the revolutionary consummation in Mexico, the Armed Forces, according to Article 89 of the Political Constitution, depended directly of the President of the Republic in turn, who was their supreme chief. Additionally, he had meta-constitutional faculties, as highlighted by the jurists, for having been the chief of the only political party; first the PNR and, posteriorly, the PRI. It was the direct link of the Armed Forces with the president, during his functions, which ultimately demonstrated that military principle overrode the possibility of relying on a civil government in this country. The same alemanismo was clever in disarticulating the post-revolutionary army and ordering and establishing an elite military force where the Major Presidential State assumed itself as a force of loyalty to men, but not to the presidential Institution and much less to the country, as done by their predecessor. Miguel Alemán reinforced the unity and center of power through the Federal Direction of Security; a political police that was led by the general Carlos I. Serrano, a violent military man, thoughtless and unconditional to the president. Along with the creation of a special force, belonging to the Riflemen Brigade Paratroopers led by the major Plutarco Albarran López.

The aforementioned explains how disturbing it is to accept that Alemán’s government was civilian, much like the posterior governments were not, where civilian politicians came to power pretending to unforgivingly take the country through paths of economic prosperity; imprinting to the life of the Nation, new routes in the political, economic, and social sphere, to the contrary of the constitutional origin of 1917. The skillful media actions, in front of the country, of the so-called civil government of Miguel Alemán need to be observed. The media outlets affirmed the end of the military caudillaje, coopting and abandoning the old military leaders who were in front lines of the battle fields. It was definitely the new people of Miguel Alemán; political men with a university toga who took over this country, perpetrating a civil caudillaje, which, according to the census of 1940, counted with a population estimated at less than twenty million; an impersonal presidential regiment, over the basis of military principles, which was deposited in the hands of civilian politicians. A model that was practiced from the government of Miguel Alemán in Veracruz and that, in a paradoxical way, he crystallized as President of the Republic during his six years in office from 1946 to 1952.

Some researchers have labeled the revolutionary generals as irrational, but it is easier to demonstrate that their political performance was in multiple ways less pernicious than those of civilians in front of the presidential Institution. This was the result of the conflict of interest transmuted by one of oligarchic character. In this way, throughout the last decades, the Mexican government has undergone serious political perturbations, which, proven in the work, notably worsened since the administration of President Miguel Alemán Valdés. Some specialists have noted that deterioration was the result of the attrition of the presidential model, created by the civilian governments due to the lack of respect to the national project based on the Constitution of 1917; a project that the administrative governments of the military revolutionaries attempted to treat the constitutional essence with unrestricted respect. They tried to let the authority of the government administrate all the social classes of the country, without demerit or favoring either one of them. Such thing was not done by the so-called civilian governments, since the oligarchic principles of these governments have always predisposed them to favor the wealthy class. In recent times much has been discussed about the Mexican presidential regiment and its impersonal characteristics, whose republic mixture some researchers have not seen as possible virtues that it could have. What is risky and dangerous about the results of this political model is due to political men, with a university toga, who had enormous influence in the private interests in public issues. This confusion has been harmful to Mexican history, at least in the period researched in this work. It is just to say that the analyzed governments were not the same in nature; there were some less voracious than others, but it was ultimately proven that the further that they distanced themselves from the precepts and project of the Nation, emanated in Constituent of 1917, they turned out more onerous. The political corruption of alemanismo was so despotic that it was able to filter into the social structure, which left in its path problems of extreme poverty.

It is common to find a diversity of academic studies, political declarations and general opinions relative to the civil government, starting with the government of Alemán. These studies have come to a contrary discernment by pointing out that it was the civilians that governed and administrated with greater efficiency than the military; therefore, it is urgent to understand the origin of the problems, especially its causes. It is necessary to come up with certain reflections in the political and historical plane in respect to an unfinished civil project. The cardenismo period, with the government of Miguel Alemán Valdés in Veracruz, is particularly what constitutes a key phase to know the reasons of the General Letter’s reforms, which gradually displaced the working and peasant class that did not own property. In the same way, the structure of military principles needs to be analyzed in a vertical form; the same that was broken by Porfirio Díaz, at the end of his long tyrannical government, and ninety years later broken in the same way, by Vicente Fox, by creating a self-delegitimation to Congress during his swearing in. To understand the fundamental causes that led to this process, a diagnosis and analysis of the role the presidential Institution played is currently researched, starting with the governments known as military and civilian. It was in this manner that there was retrospective emphasis, especially in the figure of Miguel Alemán.

Throughout the history of México a unipersonal government was developed and consolidated, which strengthened the presidential regiment and the State. The bloody fights of the country did not only work to acquire power, but to posteriorly institutionalize it in favor of the Presidential magistrate, which serves as a supreme organ of the Mexican State. In the work of this thesis, an analysis of the presidential Institution was performed, just like the military and civilian features adopted by the Mexican government—which many academics have cataloged it as: dictatorial, single-party, civil authoritarianism and presidentially embracing, amongst other titles⁶—during this entire era. However, to understand the first cause that led to such events, it is necessary to understand the beginnings of the military structure, which takes us to a certainty closer to the reality and behavior of the Mexican state.

Alemanismo, as a political current, has become a frequent reference, labeling it as a watershed between the military and civilian. But only a few ideological features have been analyzed, in a very superficial way. Before such circumstances, the origin of this political phenomenon needed to count with a more detail analysis. The works found, until this moment, do that deal in depth with theme of civilian Mexico, or they either have limited interest. Additionally, they have come to different conclusions and very frequently they are contradictory. The importance of the topic in Veracruz has also concerned neither intellectuals nor politicians, since there are no precise documents to clarify, inside this laboratory, the civil project that posteriorly led the Mexican Nation to the deterioration of its institutions.

The research project was structured in the following way: first, in order to discover the nature of the Mexican government and its determinant military and civilian principles. Chapter I captured the conquest and conservation of power, just like the application of said military and civilian principles. The initial objective was to decipher the features of the civil project during the post-revolutionary phase, from the arrival of Miguel Alemán to the government of Veracruz, until his entrance into the presidency of the Mexican Republic. The carried hypothesis led to the discovery that although the military stopped participating directly in power since the presidency of 1946, the establishment of a civilian Mexico was not achieved. The main obstacles were: a) a lack of respect for the nation in part of those who did not accept the constitutionalist precepts, b) the abandonment of the working and peasant class as a result of the government favoring Mexican businessmen and the transnational oligarchy, c) the impossibility of counting with a system of political parties that agglutinated the distinct political and social forces, and d) the genesis of the alemanista politic, supported ideologically with the lure of assuming a regiment of rights sustaining in this way a six year partisan reelection.

It is cleared that the Mexican government, with military principles, has nothing to do with the models that Maurice Duverger studied and analyzed in the regiments over military guardianship⁷, which did take place in Latin America where the majority of countries have lived a direct military dictatorship. The Mexican government comes from different military principles, which were established to be kept inside the presidential Institution, which allowed it to be the sovereign organ of the Mexican state. The revolutionary soldiers, once they took power, created the first institutions of the country and even the political parties, order to later return to barracks and allowing the governments to operate. Duverger stated that: This type of political regiment is supported by two forces: the voters and the army. If both agree, democracy works. If they do not, the army will block it.⁸ Edwin Liewen, American researcher who specializes in military topics in Central and South America, states that the Mexican revolutionary army performed a constructive role in the post-revolutionary period. They defended the social model emanated from the revolution. Also, aside from obtaining political and economic stability, different to the militarism that took place during this period of study in States that were not yet constituted, in respect to the South American region he states in the introduction of his work:

MEXICO is unique among the major nations of Latin America today. She is the only nation that has been able to stabilize her politics, modernize her economy, and maintain a modicum of her great social, Revolution […] The word army became synonymous with crime, venality, violence, and corruption.⁹

Posteriorly, in chapters II and III, the period of peace constructed during the cardenismo was explained, which produced the most important prosperity that Mexico has lived in its contemporary history, but it was seen that during those six years a civilian government was not established. The final results of the laboratory in Veracruz’ civil project had failed its last tests. Miguel Alemán Valdés, with a civilian scheme, undertook political corruption since he was governor of Veracruz, by surrounding himself from the start of his political career by an unconditional rapacious group, who only hope to enrich themselves while in political power. While the military governments enjoyed a military corruption, the elliptical civility of alemanismo, from his arrival to the region of Veracruz, only gave the country a swarm of ambitious venal.

It is just to clarify that the supposed initiation of the work was based in that the military, emerged from the Mexican Revolution, did not take on characteristics that belong to a career army, whose martial behavior and discipline had a different connotation. The popular national sign of the military, in the Presidency of the Mexican Republic, was cemented through a type of conquest of power and, overall, through the strength of loyalty, which sustained internal and foreign onslaughts. The great social pact that the Mexican governments achieved with the military gave the Nation security and stability. Finally, the Catholic Church, assumed as an institution, aligned itself in certain way to the game of the Mexican State. Similarly, the cooperation with the political forces of oligarchic essence was facilitated. All of them were agglutinated and finally represented in the PAN.

In the second part of the work, chapters IV and V, the behavior of the government of Miguel Alemán from 1936 to 1939 in Veracruz was investigated. His administration took place during a key period of peace and tranquility, as a result that the country lived through a post-revolutionary phase. Likewise, it was possible to consolidate in the discussion against those that sustain that Mexico switched to a civilian government after the arrival to Alemán to the presidency.

The presence of the civil project, performed in the region of Veracruz, led to a federal government, with a military structure foundation and with a veil of civil principles. The military traits separates from the great hierarchy that the Mexican president assumes, through a unilateral regiment and of vertical character; while the civil order is found in its electoral legitimacy and its ideological apparatus. For the analysis of the work in chapters IV and V, it was chosen as tools and theoretical supports the models of conquest and conservation of power utilized by Machiavelli in his work The Prince. These were used to understand the enthronement of the military group of the revolutionary period, and to see each man that passed through the presidential Institution. In so far as the Legislative and Judicial powers were locked in a dungeon, where it was possible to only hear a choir of off-key throats that were only allowed to sing praises to Executive Power.

Likewise, it was illustrated in respect to power, taken up by the historian of sociology and prominent opposition to fascism, Guglielmo Ferrero, whose writes in respect that:

Power is the supreme manifestation of the fear that man provokes on himself with the effort to free himself or legitimize himself […] chiefs that rule and judge, gendarmes and soldiers that forcefully impose the will and decision of the chiefs and the masses obey spontaneously or by force.¹⁰

It is the character of the means of coercion that breaks down the populace to obedience, but always with the fear that one of the social classes could rise and provoke a conquest of power, whether through violent or peaceful means. The history of humanity precisely shows us a great group of States, where there has never existed power that is secure and absolute.

Max Weber, economist and sociologist, wrote that the State is that community that inside a determined territory it is the distinctive element and even successfully demands the monopoly of the legitimate physical violence.¹¹ Paraphrasing Weber’s text, it is concluded that it is inside the State where violence originates; it is the use of power to influence an inert population, with the intention to achieve the end of the person, group or social class that stops power. In the paradigmatic example of the State, the image of the army works as a pressure group, which exerts certain influence, even in developed countries where the war economy is part of the interest of the oligarchic class with defined interests. President Eisenhower spoke about the enormous influx of businesses of the complex industrial-military. This is perhaps the contribution of the cardenismo civil project started in the region of Veracruz, where Miguel Alemán, six years later, legalized the institutionalization of unipersonal power so that, posteriorly, each election reaffirmed the legitimacy of the vertical power structure of the president in turn. In this form, the military caudillaje was abandoned by a power of civil essence with a professional profile, which would play its political, economic and social functions with a base of military principles.

This was the theoretical frame that was used to arrive at a systematic reflection of history. Besides the main ideas and rational confidence that were used to confront the political reality, which the Mexican Nation was moving on, particularly the region of Veracruz. In this thesis, there is sensible connection with all the aforementioned. It was attempted to explain the entire academic and intellectual itinerary that led us to affirm that the structure of the Mexican government is structured over military principles, contrary to those who believe that the civilian México took place from the government of Miguel Alemán Valdés, in the Presidency of the Mexican Republic.

Today’s Mexico needs to collect the best of the tradition of the generals of the revolution, who, in contrast to civilians, expressed a firm will to arrive to a more cohesive society, governed to favor all social classes; with the military in the lead, a government with republican principles was organized according to the norms and rules pre-established in the general Letter. Therefore, in a reiterative manner, it could be affirmed that the measures taken by these